Gestapo.

Editor,

Did you ever play the Gestapo game when you were a kid? "What is your name?" Reply with your name. "You lie!" Again and again.

The most pernicious aspect of government sweeping up every iota of your digital presence is that entirely harmless "dots" can be connected by an official who is convinced they represent a "signal" that you are plotting something terrible. This is akin to wedding parties being blown up by drones, innocent people being tortured for months or years for supposedly fitting an arcane profile, and is in addition to malicious action by government officials to "neutralize" their political enemies or criminalize dissent, both of which have ample precedents in political dirty tricks and infiltrating peaceful organizations exercising First Amendment rights.

Blinding oneself with imagined upside and ignoring downside is a terrible way to make policy.

This is especially true as regards NSA dragnet spying on American citizens, which has not been proven to detect or disrupt even one terrorist plot, even as planning the Boston Marathon bombings, Fort Hood shootings, and attempted Times Square bombing went unnoticed.

Re: "Edward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance" (6/5/2015)